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New World, The (2005)

Review #1,360

THE SCOOPDirector: Terrence MalickCast: Colin Farrell, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, Christian BalePlot: The story of the English exploration of Virginia, and of the changing world and loves of Pocahontas.Genre: Drama / RomanceAwards: Nom. for 1 Oscar - Best CinematographyRuntime: 172min (extended version)Rating: PG13 for some intense battle sequencesDistributor: Warner BrosIN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)

“There's
something I know when I'm with you that I forget when I'm away.”

It
has been a while since I saw a Terrence Malick picture, so what incredible
fortune to have laid hands on The Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of The New World, released in three
cuts—the 172-minute extended (presumably director’s cut) version, the 150-minute
first cut, and the 135-minute theatrical version.

Having
seen neither of the three cuts, naturally I gravitated towards the lengthiest
one, and discovered a film that from its first frame to the last is so
sublimely Malickian, there might be a case for it to be the director’s magnum
opus.

Some
critics have regarded The New World
as his masterpiece, and one of the defining works of the 2000s decade. It does feel like a lavishing of one praise
too many, and the film is what it is—a long, meandering, overly self-indulgent
and pretentious piece of work.

Yet it is only through the
acceptance of it as such that we free ourselves from judging it too harshly and
can begin to appreciate the film outside of any recognisable reference or
yardstick. Still for me, The New World is certainly not one of
Malick’s best—I enjoyed The Thin Red Line(1998) and The Tree of Life(2011)
more.

But
as film scholar Tom Gunning has elucidated, The
New World exists so that those two films that bookended it could
exist. The New World puts The Thin
Red Line’s epic scope, combined with its visual poetry and philosophy, into
the context of the enigmatic director’s newfound direction, away from the twin
pair, Badlands(1973) and Days of Heaven(1978), that were
considerably more economical and self-contained. In a way, I would like to see the three
subsequent films that were made after Malick’s puzzling 20-year absence as a
trilogy of existence—of death, love and life respectively.

Based
on the well-known story of Captain Smith and Pocahontas, The New World gives us a pair of naturalistic performances by Colin
Farrell and Q’orianka Kilcher (in a revelatory display). But it is the film’s extraordinary beauty,
shot largely in natural light by Emmanuel Lubezki (a trial-by-process that I’m
sure put him in good stead for the far more disconcerting challenges of The Revenantten years later), that will
stay with you.

Together
with the director’s unique use of multi-voice narration which acts like lyrical
whispers from the heart, the fragmented narrative and subdued characters of The New World make us feel as if we are
apparitions in the wind, like a time-travelling eavesdropper. For better or worse, Malick is certainly peerless
in giving us such singular screen experiences.

Verdict: Certainly not one of Malick’s best, but this extraordinarily
beautiful film—in its 172-minute extended cut—sees the director at his most
lyrical and self-indulgent.